J. Jance - Fatal Error

As Ali did the sorting and folding, she also listened. In the process she couldn’t help but think about and be grateful for how different Chris and Athena’s situation was from what hers had been when Chris was born. His father, Dean, had died of a glioblastoma weeks before Chris appeared on the scene. Ali had been a single mother from day one-from before day one, actually.

Chris and Athena were in this together. They expected that Athena would be going back to work as soon as possible after the babies were born. The school district had accepted Chris’s request to stay home on parental leave. Ali knew he was hoping that he’d be able to look after the twins and still do some metal sculpture work in his basement studio. Ali had sincere doubts about his ability to carry that one off, but she was careful not to mention her motherly case of skepticism. Experience had taught her that looking after two babies would make welding metal artwork pieces an impossible pipe dream.

“You know,” Ali said, casually, “I don’t mind doing this, but even if he doesn’t do it quite the way you want it done, shouldn’t Chris be in on this? Once the babies get here, you’ll be lucky to get the clothes out of the dryer and into the basket, to say nothing of drawers, but if he’s going to be the one staying home, it seems to me he should be in charge of putting all this stuff away.”

Athena shook her head. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” Ali asked, although something in Athena’s tone suggested that whatever it was, Ali might not want to know about it.

Athena sighed. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but your son is color-blind. Not completely. Primary colors he can do. Reds and greens at stoplights he can do. Pastels? Not so much. According to him, all these clothes are gray.” She waved her one good hand in the direction of the stacks of clothing, now properly sorted by color.

Ali was thunderstruck. “Are you kidding? You’re telling me my own son is color-blind?”

The news came as a complete surprise. Eventually, though, Ali dissolved in a hopeless case of giggles. Before long Athena was laughing too.

“I never knew,” Ali gasped at last. “I had no idea. From the time he was little he gravitated to blues and reds. I thought he just liked them.”

“No,” Athena said, sobering. “Those are the only colors he could see. So tell me, how long will it be before the twins can choose their own clothes?”

“They probably start doing that when they’re three or four.”

“I hope they hurry,” Athena said. “Between now and then, with their father dressing them, it’s not going to be pretty.”

By the time Ali had the last of the clothing put away, Chris turned up with a bouquet of store-bought flowers and a sweet thinking-of-you card. The guy may have been color-blind, but he knew when it was time to turn up with a fistful of flowers.

Ali left Chris and Athena’s house still feeling bemused. She and Chris had always been close, and she was incredibly proud of him, but as it turned out, Ali Reynolds didn’t know her own son nearly as well as she thought she did.

San Diego, California

Mark Blaylock set off for San Diego that Friday morning tired and hungover but elated. After months of watching their financial situation deteriorate and then more months of worrying about the programming, he had cause to feel happy. It seemed to him that they were about to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Wednesday’s flawless early morning test flight had put his programming worries to rest once and for all. Both reprogrammed UAVs had flown properly. Both had taken off as expected and had followed their prescribed flight plans. The first one had landed exactly as the flight plan dictated, while an operator-issued command had blown the second drone to smithereens.

That night he and Mina had driven into Palm Springs for a celebratory dinner. The next morning Mina had set off for Grass Valley in her older-model Lincoln. She had flown up to meet with Richard that first time, but since then, not wanting to deal with TSA scrutiny or to leave much of a paper trail, she had driven back and forth. The trip usually took a couple of days. Knowing how much Mina despised living in the cramped cabin in Salton City, Mark tried not to begrudge her her periodic absences.

Mark had especially made it a point not to think about her monthly trips to see Richard Lowensdale, give him his partial payment, and check on his progress. If sex with Mina was part of what was keeping Richard on the job, Mark was prepared to overlook it. After all, he had his own occasional dalliances, and he wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to begrudge Mina hers. Besides, this was the end of it. Once the program fixes had been installed in the rest of the UAVs, they wouldn’t need Richard Lowensdale anymore.

“See you on Sunday,” she said, when he kissed her goodbye.

“Stay safe,” he told her.

Knowing he’d need to spend a couple of days in San Diego, Mina had left him a fistful of welcome cash to cover food and lodging. Much as he tried not to, Mark couldn’t help regarding it as being given an allowance. To regain a little self-respect, he spent most of the day on Thursday drinking and gambling at his favorite hangout, the Red Earth Casino. With some luck and what he liked to regard as skill, he managed to add to that initial sum. On Friday morning, with a smile on his face and money in his pocket, he finally set off for San Diego to fulfill his part of the bargain and install Richard’s programming fix in each of their remaining UAVs.

He didn’t rush. He stopped off for a beer here and there along the way. One thing he really missed on the drive was the Sirius radio he used to have in his Mercedes. That was one of the problems with being kicked downstairs. Now, tooling along in a secondhand Honda, instead of being able to hum along with the country-western tunes he preferred on the Roadhouse or Willie’s Place, he had to search through what was available-mostly Spanish-speaking stations or blabbing news.

So losing the Mercedes was a noticeable blow that was both economic and emotional. When he reached the industrial park complex that had once been home to Rutherford International, he took another hit as he drove past what had once been their official headquarters. There was a new name on the sign above the door, and Mark couldn’t help but take the change personally. Rutherford’s failure was Mark’s failure, and he was grateful that Mina had found a way to breathe some life into the smoldering ashes of their financial catastrophe.

He drove through the familiar maze of light industrial and warehouse streets. When they had been looking for a location, having their office address on Opportunity Road had seemed exactly right. And having their warehouse/manufacturing facility on Engineer Road had seemed perfect as well, especially considering the proximity of Montgomery Field, where they had expected to do their test flights.

Whether based on hubris or unbounded optimism, their assumption that they would actually win the much sought-after drone contract had been naive. Mark’s contacts had led them to believe that they had an “inside track” and that it was a “done deal.” They had leveraged everything they owned to grab the opportunity, and when the contract went elsewhere, they lost big and were still left holding leases they could no longer afford.

Unfortunately their misfortunes coincided with what was going on in the general economy. As they were taking their financial hits, so was everyone else. California commercial real estate went into a downward spiral right along with the residential market, and that was as true for this office park as it was for similar projects throughout the country. Buildings that had once been fully occupied and busy now stood empty and forlorn, their entrances weedy, their walls covered with gang-related tags. Mark was relieved when he saw that no new tags were in evidence on the part of the one building that still had Rutherford International stenciled on the doors.